Depends what you mean by settling. There are obviously deal-breakers, like the big one Shannon mentioned. I have a couple, myself. Theism is obviously a no-no, as is smoking.

Exactly what do you mean by chemistry? When I hear most people use the term, it generally seems to boil down to sexual attraction. I guess that is a requirement for a romantic relationship. If you don't want to jump someone periodically, how is your relationship not just friends or roommates or something? Without the emotional and sexual bond ... well, what's the point?

Some people say accept a date from someone if they seem nice, you can learn to like someone. It could happen that way afterall I've been friends with people, who I've not initially been attracted to but fancied them after I've got to know them. So maybe there is something in being open, I now follow the three date rule. Say yes to dating as long as they meet certain criteria (e.g.they are atheist) but if there is no chemistry after three dates end it. The three date rule allows time for you to see if you click on an intellectual level and means that you are less likely to rule out a potential partner.

1 - Deal breakers - These are things I simply can't overlook or compromise on. It's not a big list but there are some critical things. Something like smoking is on this list. Another thing for me is seasickness. If you get sea sick it will not work, I want someone who wants to spend time on the water and getting sick won't do.

2 - Important things - These are things that may bug me but I'm amenable to compromise and I won't say no outright. However, I will be on guard for the time being. Someone being a theist often falls under this category. Simply because most women I meet are more "spiritual" than religious, whatever the hell that means.

3 - Unimportant things - All the other shit I just don't care about. The vast majority of things fall under this category.

At the end of the day though, as another poster said it does come down to chemistry. Which is not just sexual. There is intellectual and emotional chemistry as well. If it's not there, it can't be created. At least that has been my experience.

I guess you could say I'm very picky, I just say I simply know what won't work with me.

I think it depends on what one means by "chemistry." Usually, I think of people's desire for "chemistry" as a desire for magic--as a desire for something that they take to be entirely beyond their control. It hits, and they're swept away. I generally disapprove of that. It's great if what you want is a fling, I suppose, but for a long-term relationship?

My own view is that the important thing is that you be able to get along with each other and that you *choose* to be loving toward each other. Passion follows. Some people just don't seem to believe that it does. I don't mean that if you're patient and wait ten years it will follow. I mean that it follows upon the conscious decision to be loving toward each other.

I always suggest reading Deborah Tannen's That's Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships. I also suggest looking at the results of the PAIR (Processes of Adaptation in Intimate Relationships) Project, which studied what characteristics tend to be associated with relationships' lasting and what characteristics tend to be associated with relationships' not lasting. (One finding is that people who are dissatisfied with their relationships are, on average, no more compatible and no less compatible with their partners than people who are satisfied with their relationships. But they *think* they're incompatible, and they focus on that, and they brood over that, and they end up leaving or driving their partners to leave.)

We have a "can-do", "I can have anything that I want" culture that enjoins people to optimize. Optimize your career choice, your investment strategy, your hairstyle, your choice of mate - everything. This culture says to never settle, for any settling is shortchanging oneself.

I think that that's nonsense. So much of our lives is beyond our control, even when we consciously strive towards a goal that is reasonable and which we are in principle equipped to attain. While one should not "settle" on the first available partner who bothers to return one's phone calls, it is ludicrous and dangerous to optimize. Find Mr./Miss "good enough", and settle for that.

There is not settling and then there is removing yourself from any chance of finding companionship through unrealistic levels of restriction. I have physical and mental likes and then I have some repulsion towards some physical or mental characteristics. I can't settle for someone in the repulsion side of things as it would never work but you also have to be careful about restricting yourself out of possibilities.

Personally, I think for me it would be an issue for me to settle on the deal breakers. I'm not a person to quibble on minor issues however if you don't have all three qualifications then there could be a problem in the future. Even if I didn't settle one of these things I don't think I would be happy because I compromised a part of my uniqueness for a relationship with a person who doesn't accept the most important things that make up my personality. I think it's extremely shallow to choose a mate by trivial caveats like he or she MUST love sports. I've even seen profiles posted by male users who essentially are seeking an equivalent to a male hangout buddy.

I think it is *essential* not to "settle" on the must-haves or the dealbreakers. Some are structural: if one person is set on a big family (something I will editorially note that none of us should be set on in an overpopulated world) and the other is set on having no kids at all, it's going to be hard to compromise. Others are preferences, but really, really strong ones: I, for example, will not try living with someone who smokes indoors. I have trouble imagining being happy in the long term when the really *big* things are not as you want them to be.

But you have to ask yourself: "What can I live with?" Can you live with your partner's having curly hair? Can you live with your partner's folding the newspaper "the wrong way"? What can you live with? What just isn't a big deal? Never make mountains out of molehills if you can help it.

To me, it seems that loving is the *easy* part. *Liking* is the hard part. Loving is just a matter of *permitting yourself to love*. But *liking*--that requires more. That requires things like enjoying the other person's sense of humor, approving of the other person's sense of values, and simply enjoying spending time with the other person. (For a highly sexual person--like me--being involved with another highly sexual person ensures enjoying spending lots of time together, so perhaps for a highly sexual person liking isn't as important as for someone who, like a friend of mine, just isn't a very sexual creature. But you still really want to be involved with someone whom you do, in fact, like as well as love.)

(Please recognize, too, that it's OK to be two different people. The one woman I've been involved with who seemed like a really good match to me left when she noticed differences between us--including, of all things, liking different things to eat--and apparently decided that that meant we were doomed. [I say "apparently" because she left and cut off all communication.] She left when we had had no fights at all and seemed very compatible. But there will always be differences.)